[ColoradoTree]

Looking at the above, would it be fair to break down the recruiting rankings as follows?

>/= 12: Elite, one of the top college players, a difference maker
11.5 - 12: Blue chip; solid #1, or possibly #2 in an elite team
11 - 11.5: Solid recruit; #1 on a good team, #2 or 3 on an elite team
< 11: Good recruit; starter on a good team, #4 or 5 on an elite team

BC

I think it's hard to break down like that with great certainty, but you're not far off. Madurawe came in as a 11.57 and didn't crack the lineup until late in the year, but again, the algorithm tweak makes it tough to compare year over year. But I'd agree that if you're coming in with a 12 or above, you should absolutely be expected to be in the top 2 in almost any lineup. In general, I think you need to discount the UTRs of incoming players because the competition levels may not be the same, but USC's Branstine is one of the top juniors in the world, so in her case, I'd expect her to play #1 there over Ewing.

And Madurawe and Choy would certainly have been capable starters at #6 if we'd needed them there all year, really. But cracking the lineups of these teams that consistently have all blue chip or top international-type talent (like us, UNC, Duke, etc.) is really hard. I'd agree that anyone coming in above, say, 11.25, could be a #1 on a lot of D-I teams, and that same player might not play at all for the top handful of teams. 

FYI, the "blue chip" designation that Tennis Recruiting Network bestows doesn't always track with UTR, if a player gets hurt and old results fall off, or if they're not playing as heavy a junior tournament circuit as others do. UTR tries to get to an apples-to-apples comparison of player quality, but that's hard to do when some players exclusively play big junior tournaments, others are playing international tournaments, and others mostly play high school tennis with the occasional tournament. 

Sometimes a UTR like 12.00 or 11.00 indicates some rounding--slam.tennis has USC's Carson Branstine at 11.82, not 12.00. Sometimes it might mean an older, less reliable UTR that has since changed to reflect more results, like FSU's Victoria Allen being at 11.48 on slam.tennis rather than 12.00 in the TRN article. In general, I think UTR becomes a more reliable metric as time goes on, and it's at its best each year during NCAA tournament play after we've had a season to sort things out, each team establishes its internal pecking order, etc.

[ColoradoTree]

Looking at the above, would it be fair to break down the recruiting rankings as follows?

>/= 12: Elite, one of the top college players, a difference maker
11.5 - 12: Blue chip; solid #1, or possibly #2 in an elite team
11 - 11.5: Solid recruit; #1 on a good team, #2 or 3 on an elite team
< 11: Good recruit; starter on a good team, #4 or 5 on an elite team

BC

I think it's hard to break down like that with great certainty, but you're not far off. Madurawe came in as a 11.57 and didn't crack the lineup until late in the year, but again, the algorithm tweak makes it tough to compare year over year. But I'd agree that if you're coming in with a 12 or above, you should absolutely be expected to be in the top 2 in almost any lineup. In general, I think you need to discount the UTRs of incoming players because the competition levels may not be the same, but USC's Branstine is one of the top juniors in the world, so in her case, I'd expect her to play #1 there over Ewing.

And Madurawe and Choy would certainly have been capable starters at #6 if we'd needed them there all year, really. But cracking the lineups of these teams that consistently have all blue chip or top international-type talent (like us, UNC, Duke, etc.) is really hard. I'd agree that anyone coming in above, say, 11.25, could be a #1 on a lot of D-I teams, and that same player might not play at all for the top handful of teams. 

FYI, the "blue chip" designation that Tennis Recruiting Network bestows doesn't always track with UTR, if a player gets hurt and old results fall off, or if they're not playing as heavy a junior tournament circuit as others do. UTR tries to get to an apples-to-apples comparison of player quality, but that's hard to do when some players exclusively play big junior tournaments, others are playing international tournaments, and others mostly play high school tennis with the occasional tournament. 

Sometimes a UTR like 12.00 or 11.00 indicates some rounding--slam.tennis has USC's Carson Branstine at 11.82, not 12.00. Sometimes it might mean an older, less reliable UTR that has since changed to reflect more results, like FSU's Victoria Allen being at 11.48 on slam.tennis rather than 12.00 in the TRN article. In general, I think UTR becomes a more reliable metric as time goes on, and it's at its best each year during NCAA tournament play after we've had a season to sort things out, each team establishes its internal pecking order, etc.